The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1887-09-12
LIFE AMONG THE SIAMESE
Strange Customs and characteristics of
the White Elephant Worshippers.
A Lady from the Far Away Country Tells
Some Interesting Things About Her
People and their Religion.

city, are well known Ior the greaL INTEREST
they take in foreign missions. Their pleasant
home is headquarters of the mission work in
connection with the Seventh Presbyterian
Church. 1t is no uncommon thing to find a
Jap" or Chinaman who is being educated in
this country visiting there. bringing them news
of friends and relatives in Siam, for Cathay,
who have taken their lives in their hands TO
lead the peoples of these countries to the kindly
light that has made fifty years of Europe worth
cycle of Cathay. The latest visitor of this kind
is Miss Minnie Bows, of Bangkok. Siam, stu
dent of the Western Female Seminary at Ok
ford. O., since 1885, the Mount Holyoke" of
Ohio. Miss Bows is little woman. very bright.
sprightly and intelligent. and equally devoted
to her studies and her people, to whom
she will ultimately return a medical
missionary. She is not at all self-seeking and
only seems anxious for English and profess
sonal training that she may be of greater use to
her people, looking on her life here a means
to this end. She has excellent command of
English, having been taught the rudiments by
her mother, who was two years in London, and
was the first convert Of the Presbyterian mis-
sons in Siam, as her father was the first of the
Baptist. Her father, who superinten6s a large
rice-mill in Bangkok, trusted her to the mis-
sionaries, though he hated to part with her. The
mission agreed upon America, and her father
set two years as the limit. These years were
spent in private school in New York. By this
time Minnie determined to complete her
education at all hazards, and return to Siam
either q training a physician She
says she prayed to her Father in heaven, who
answered her prayers through her
foster father in Cedar Rapids, Ia,
the Hon. Richard r. Bows, after whose
named by the Bangkok missionaries at the re-
quest of Mr.. Bows. She already had the name
Minnie from her Christian mother, who loved
the word for its softness and affinity TO her ma
tive tongue Mr. Bows is continuing her edu-
cation at the Western, under the care of the
church and people of her choice.
Miss Bows was brought to DR.. Wishard's by
Miss Laura A. Olmstead former resident of
Southport, and sisterin-aw Of Rev. Horace
Bushnell, of the Presbyterian church in that
place. Miss Olmstead has been eight years a
teacher and worker IN Bangkok and is Wis
iting relatives in Kansas She went to Siam by
way of California and returned by way Of Eng
land, completing the round of the world. and
will soon return TO the land of the white ele-
plant to resume her work
Miss Bows Is also known to Mrs. Florence
Wishard Fulton, now of China, and we'll known
in this city AS Miss Wishard she set out
for northern Siam, 500 miles up the Nile of
Siam, the river Menam. For three months she
journeved mp the river from Bangkok, the
Venice of the Orient, to Clueng Mai, the capital
of northern Siam, and city of 100, 900. 1t is
scarcely known to Western people. aud though
on the direct highway from British Burmah to
China which is certain to be opened up by rail-
way at no distant day, is almost inaccessible
There several missionaries here, and with
them Miss Wishard tarried ten months, until she
was changed off" TO China at her request,
and that Of Mr. Fulton, whom she had met
the way out. They fell in love at first sight,
and their last and only chance. might say.
and concluded they could souls by
mutual love and labor in China than by work
ing singly with a thousand miles of Shion
jungle between them.
Miss Bows has excellent command of English
and prattles freely in answer to questions
about her people. their customs. country, relIg-
ion and government. To hear her converse and
note the difference between the Siamese and
Chinese physiognomy. one easily inclines to the
idea that they are closely allied to that
powerful Indo European to which Europe
and America owe their civilization, and whose
branches the Hiudoos Persians Greeks,
Latins, Celts, and the Teutonic and Slavonic
races.
The late Samese king Maha Mongkut-whose
court and harem Is SO well known to English
people through Mrs Leonomen's English Gov
erness at the Siamese Court" where she spent
six years as the kings private secretary and
teacher of English to his sixty wives and eighty
seven children-was a devoted scholar who would
even stop beating his concubines discuss
pathological question. She found that out of
IL, 900 words 5000 were San5crt, or had their
roots in that tongue The rest were Indo-
Chinese and Cambodian words, there is
immense immigration of Chinese into Bangkok
and other towns along the Menam
The population Of Siam is estimated at TO-
100000, and of Bangk at 600. 900, of whom
well on TO 200. 900 are Chinese 80, 900 Burmese,
and as many Arabs aud Indians. To avoid the
invaslons of cholera, the people have built on
the river, securing better cleanliness and venti-
lation. Only the upper classes allowed to
build on the banks. Miss Bows says that at
night the river is hung with thousands of COW
cred lights and lanterns Of al shapes sizes and
colors double row of houses on RATS of
bamboo, extends for miles on both sides of the
river, so that the Meuam itself forms the main
avenue, six miles long, of the floating
shops, the great bazaar OF the river. Every day
at sunrise the shaven priests of Buddha. 10000
in number. visit every house along the river.
the Little Sisters of the Poor do the merchants
of our cities, and gather in the aims which are
freely offered. The boats of this floating popu-
apolis combined, Of kinds-a
Venetion gondola style. for common use and
square house and merchandise boat with
dows at the sides. aud also basketcovered boat.
long and round like the tent-top of a South
Carolina wagon. The Menam is the Nile of
the country, down it come the great timber
RATS OF pine; 1t leads up TO the homo OF the white
elephant.
Siam is about a thousand miles long, between
miles wide, forming the middle portion of the |
Indo- Chinese peninsula. 1t is billy. except the
central rich plain of the Menam This river, 900 |
miles long floods in August changing the vast |
built universally on boats, and at the flood in |
June, July and August these look like the |
Stands in immense Boats, steamers |
and native craft, ply from town to an
'ther IN the lower valley without injury
10 the great rice fields starting
% grow beneath them. The river is called in
he royal archives Chow Phya," Royal High
less. and by the people simply 'Menam."
which means, simply, river mother of waters,
ust South American people cali the Amazon,
Amazonas, which also means river. The river
8 so bold and powerful it takes tine natives over
hree months to pole up to Chongmie, 500 miles
o the north while the voyage down Is made in
hree weeks
With a mean range of about 13o. Few clothes
re needed rice is the main flood, with tropical
ruits and a great population is easily sup
orred The hot and wet season begins in May;
he dry season in July. The weather in the
ry season. Miss Bows says, is like that of the
resent summer here In the wet it is
N possible TO keep anything dry, not the